Life and Work of Steven Joseph Deme

1955-2024

Steven Joseph Deme peacefully passed away at his Toronto home at the age of 69. Beloved husband, work partner and soulmate of Dawn MacDonald Deme, son of the late Louis and Helen, brother of the late Louis Deme, Steven grew up Hungarian-Canadian-Catholic in Hamilton, Ontario, attending St. Joseph and Cathedral schools, serving many years as altar boy at both St. Stephen’s Hungarian Catholic Church and St. Joseph’s across the street from the Deme home. Steven’s father Louis Sr., once a public administration academic in Hungary, worked in Hamilton Catholic schools, a much-loved janitor. Steven’s mother Helen worked in the records department of Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital.

Steven, speaking only Hungarian until the age of six, would soon get to know what Canada was all about from welcoming families of many young school friends. At the same time, his mother Helen, enthusiastic motorist, was always available to drive the friends around, especially on Sundays to hit the local ice cream store.

At St. Joseph’s parish, Steven met lifelong friends, several of whom were artists, writers and musicians, who, like many of that generation, become comrade explorers of new ideas about how to live and what to care about. Steve and his friends lived and worked by the songs of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and others.

Latter-day Jack Kerouacs, they would hitchhike and bike across the country, practice macrobiotic dietary principles, keep diaries, write poetry and in Steven’s case, take a lot of photographs of Canadians, coast to coast. One year, it would be practicing their French all the way to St. Pierre et Miquelon, French islands off the east coast; the next year out to Prince George for paper mill jobs.

Steve was athletic. High school basketball and football involvements would morph into yoga and tai chi, and for Steve, long distance running which he coached and practiced, running 10 marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 2011.

He updated his faith understandings by frequenting retreats at Queen of Apostles in Mississauga. He was fascinated by what was happening in the Church’s reform era of Vatican II, enriched by social justice teachings, ideas about interfaith dialogue, and new possibilities for a role in church life for the laity, especially women.

To be a Canadian in those days was also to be a global citizen. At the age of 19, Steven threw his bike onto a plane for a gap year of cycling across Europe, spending half the time in his ancestral home of Hungary, learning its geography, history, meeting his extensive Hungarian family, his still camera ever at the ready.

Soon, however, he was captivated by the moving images of film, its history and capacity for telling stories. Pulled to Film Arts at Ryerson University where he graduated in 1984, Steve remained a lifelong film buff, especially appreciating Japanese and Iranian filmmakers. In 1997, as president of the Ecumenical Prize, Montreal Film Festival, he was thrilled to see his jury choose the Iranian film Children of Heaven by director Majid Majidi. In 2008, he deepened his academic understanding with a master’s degree in media production, also at Ryerson.

In the late eighties, following BA graduation, Steve jumped at chances to work on crews filming aspects of Canadian indigenous culture and then internationally, first in Nicaragua and then China, via Nepal. The spirituality of everyday Tibetans led him to eventual discovery of mystical traditions within his own Catholic faith.

In 1990, he met Dawn MacDonald, also a Catholic, also a media professional (writer, editor), also student of Canadian indigenous and world cultures, also of the generation who saw Canada as proponent of international understanding. After six months of almost daily hours-long telephone conversations, the pair formed a business partnership as Villagers Media Productions, on Valentine’s Day, 1991. Seven months later, they married on September 17, 1991 (feast day of Saint Hildegard, patroness of ecology, music and writers).

On presenting Dawn with a pearl engagement ring, budget-friendly, yes, but also, said Steven, symbolizing their pearl of great price, as described by Matthew in the New Testament. Their bond of love was their pearl, always prevailing against the headwinds of collaborative video production over two decades, and, then, in the last decade, the ravages of his illness.

Long bike rides while visiting their favorite cabin in Gananoque were a feature of their first decade; their long walks and talks continued to the end, a red-headed dog always in tow.

Perhaps echoes from his hitch-hiking days, Steve would often stop to talk to people living or working on the streets. One evening early on, the Demes were strolling through Rosedale when a young man popped up, saying he was lost and wanting to join his camper community. The couple escorted him to the right opening in the Rosedale ravine. “You guys are angels,” the camper said, leaving Steve with something he thought he should try to live up to.

One day a street fellow asked Steve about his dog, Wolfie. “Do you have a wife,” he asked? “Yes.” “Do you have a dentist?” “Yes.” “Well, you have everything you need.” Steve agreed.

The latter turned out to be prophetic. Steve’s dentist, the first medical professional to notice Steve was symptomatic of coming illness, personally took over his dental care, making Steve feel at ease, allowing him to practice tai chi in her reception area, while waiting for her attention, even though his moves took up the entire space.

One day, the couple set out to celebrate their 30th anniversary. While resting a few minutes on one of the park benches on Yonge street, a gang of street cleaners went by. One of them yelled out to Steve in admiration of his new shirt, a pink-flowered John-Lennon-branded gift from Dawn. Soon Steve was travelling along with the street cleaner while they chatted about men’s styles, John Lennon and various other matters. Steve soon remembered he had a previous engagement with Dawn.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote about a couple’s duty to protect each other’s solitude, the Demes adding the idea of protection of each other’s passions and destinies.

The Demes trained together in 2002 to run in their first 10 km event. They continued to practice together until suddenly, in 2006, Steve stopped them, mid-run: “Dawn, you are too slow!” The next week Steve signed up for half marathon running at Running Room. Dawn did the same in the walkers group.

The ten years of his international work, 2000-2010, were a shared passion but necessitating separate functioning. Steve was the constant traveller, always in need of recovery from each expedition; Dawn at home base, always the organizer, safety monitor, writer and post production producer.

The past decade of Steve’s ever-advancing illness was also the couple’s most precious time together. Partners in that too, they had time to review, and, also, to apologize to each other for those moments, few, from time to time, when they let each other down.

Steve was dutiful and loving to his families, the Demes and the MacDonalds, his in-law family. He was there with his mother Helen in the ambulance 2004 when she went into long term care (LTC), breaking away from a production day. Weekly visits over the years ensued. There with her, her last five days 2017, while he himself was in advancing stages of illness, taking a cab from Toronto to Dundas and back a few days later. Same with Frances MacDonald, his adored mother-in-law in Ottawa, always willing to do that 1,000 km Toronto-Ottawa round trip several times a year in order to drive her around to favourite childhood sites.

Steven had always wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, mother and brother who used their many gifts in the service of the St. Stephen’s Hungarian Catholic community. Steve’s form of service was video production, his beautiful camera work, inexhaustible energy in the field, no matter the hardships, total comfort with people of all cultures, educational and economic backgrounds, were his humble offering to Canadian Catholics, and to people of all faiths and no faith.

In 1991, Steve was honoured to be a part of founding the Catholic Television Group (CTG), the goal to bring about Catholic programming for Vision TV the newly launched Canadian interfaith channel.

CTG was an informal body of interested leadership from a variety of major Catholic organizations and religious communities, including School Sisters of Notre Dame, Loreto Sisters, Scarboro Missions, Congregation of Notre Dame; Oblates, Lacombe Province; Passionists of Canada, Sacred Heart Sisters, Ottawa; Sisters of Charity, New Brunswick; Sisters of Charity of St. Louis, Calgary, AB; Sisters of Mercy, Newfoundland; Presentation Sisters, Newfoundland; Sisters of Providence, Holy Angels Province, Edmonton, AB; Sisters of Providence, St. Vincent de Paul Province, Kingston, ON; Sisters of St. Ann, Victoria, BC; Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada; Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto; Sisters of St. Martha, PEI; Spiritans; Ursulines, Chatham, Consolata Missionaries, Comboni Missionaries, Religious Hospitalers of Kingston, Also key Catholic organizations: Pontifical Mission Societies, Catholic Women’s League, NORE, Novalis, Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, Development and Peace, various bishops and dioceses around the country.

As advisors, financial supporters, and co-producers, CTG members supported Villagers in many directions of interest to Catholics but also with the broadest possible audiences in mind. One way or another, Villagers has produced Catholic-sponsored programming on VisionTV for more than 30 continuous years.

These included programs on ecological theology with Fr. Thomas Berry, Fr. Stephen Dunn, Sr. Ann Lonergan, Roberto Chiotti, Archbishop Donald Bolen, First Nations history and current situations (Dr. Olive Dickason, Dr. Eva Solomon CSJ), the history of immigration and refugee newcomers to Canada, peace movements in Israel and North America concerned with relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims, perspectives from an emerging new generation of women theologians and leaders. A culminating documentary for Villagers, and for Steve, was the soon to be released One Hundred Years of Service, a one-hour TV history documentary examining the lives and ministries of care of the Sisters of Service of Canada founded by Catherine Donnelly in 1922.Prime ministers John Diefenbaker and Pierre Trudeau had long ago established for Canadians the social goals of diversity, equality, inclusion; Catholic theological sources for these goals were to be found everywhere the Demes filmed. Whether in schools, hospitals, or administrators’ offices, walls were covered with illustrations of a common theme: “All are equal in the eyes of God.”

By 1994, Steve and Villagers received the Outstanding Contribution to Catholic Communications award. In 1997, Steve and Dawn were guest instructors and learners at Centre Recherché et Communication, Lyon, France, founded by Pierre Babin, specialist in social communications theology. Guests of Fr. Babin in his home in France, the Demes had long studied his ideas about the possibilities for the sacred in media, the understanding that all relationships in front of and behind the camera must be based on respect and fairness.

By 2000, ten years into production with Villagers, Steven began to fully realize his dream of becoming a citizen of the global village he wanted to film, leading small-crew expeditions to over 29 countries in the developing world, sometimes filming two or three times in one country. All preplanned, logistically and editorially, by Dawn and through her famous three-inch travel binders. Steve’s one-person crews were mostly in their early 20s and personally trained by him for the rigours of filming in often tough circumstances.

While crew members would eventually have to leave the company in order to start families and new opportunities, they often stayed on for extended periods of time, five years, ten years, 20 years. Standout production assistants for Steve’s productions included Boyd Bonitzke (Ryerson classmate; Villagers founding editor), Christopher Allen, Christopher Goncalves, Genevieve Holt, Michael Coleman, Jim Kelly, sj, Michael Dodds, and Darren Kinash. Darren, the last of Steve’s travelling partners, has been with the company for 19 years.

These videotaped travels (2000-2010) would be post-produced by Villagers postproduction team, led by Dawn, into various TV series (The Global Villagers, World Class, and other TV specials), a total of 50+ half hour TV programs.

In 1995, Villagers was asked by The Redemptorists of Canada (a religious order of Catholic priests and brothers) to design and produce a half-hour weekly TV program of song, prayer and meditations in honour of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, a devotional practice assigned to the Redemptorists by Pope Pius IX in 1866.

To be called DevotionsTV, the program set out to present post Vatican II insights into Mary, mother of Jesus and his first disciple, whom he named Mother of the Church. In 1996, the Redemptorists received the Outstanding Contribution to Catholic Communications award for DevotionsTV.

Now beginning its 30th year of continuous broadcasting on Vision TV (18 years on Salt+LightTV, Canada’s Catholic TV network), DevotionsTV also highlights Redemptorists’ efforts to provide guidance for the spiritual issues of our times, also the voices of emerging women preachers and the singing talents of high school Catholic music students. Several of the high school music productions for the program were under the direction of musicologist Dr. Robin Williams, director of Liturgy and Music at St Patrick’s Redemptorist Parish. Dr. Williams teaches sacred Catholic music at St. Mary’s Academy, Toronto.

Steve, in the last decade of his life, turned to the program as viewer rather than producer, finding solace and inspiration for the long, slow journey through terminal illness. One DevotionsTV series, authored by Vancouver’s Dr. Mark Miller, renowned bioethicist and Redemptorist priest, When God Calls you Home, became Steve’s North Star; a travel guide for his road ahead.

In 2010, when Villagers went online with its digital productions, Steve wrote its front-piece dedication, putting into a few modest words what the company and his work was all about:

People who care.
Who dare to care.
Who make a difference.
We’ve helped tell their stories.
We will go on doing just that.

Mourned by Hungarian cousins László (Johanna) Deme and Andrea (Béla) Bükki, second cousins András, Eszter, and Rebeka, as well as other relatives in Hungary. Washington, DC cousin Barbara Toth.

Saddened by their loss, Steven’s in-law family includes: Karen Laughlin (Terrence), Sandra MacDonald Rencz (Andrew), Margaret MacDonald Jones (Russell), his nephews and nieces, Edward MacDonald (Melissa), Jennifer MacDonald (Ari), Sean Laughlin (Elizabeth), Sarah Laughlin (Ryan), Matthew Rencz (Bonnie), Amanda Rencz Chatham (Michael), Benjamin Rencz (Tuuli) and their children. Predeceased by his loving parents-in-law, Angus and Frances MacDonald, his brother-in-law Ian MacDonald (Rosemary) and his brother-in-law, Andrew Rencz.